Welcome, all you lovely dear bloggerisationism fiends, to the first From The North update in some considerable (since early May, anyway). This has been for a variety of different reasons - mostly, unrelated to anything even remotely important. Contrary to common belief, this blogger does have a life. Sometimes. Nevertheless, yer actual Keith Telly Topping (or, as he shall be known for the duration of this bloggerisationism update only, yer actual Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III ... because he feels like it) urges every and each dear blog readers not to worry unduly about the infrequency of recent updates hereabouts. From The North ain't goin' nowhere, any time soon. And, on that particular bombshell, as they used to say on Pipkins, 'it's ... time.' In this case, in many more ways than just the one.
So, From The North-type individuals, since last this blogger blogged at you like a ... big-blogging-thing, much has occurred. We've got a Cricket World Cup, a Football European Championships and a General Erection campaign all on-going at the same time. Some of them more interesting than others, admittedly. All that in all three cases we pretty much know whose going to win the thing(s) loing before the final knockings. Last time on From The North, the first two episodes of the new series of Doctor Who starring Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson had just landed on BBC iPlayer. The artist formerly known as Keith Telly Topping but now known as Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III thought that they were both, you know, 'great.' And, he had even been on the radio to say so to anyone that was listening. Mere days later, we had the long-awaited and much-teased return to the series that he graced as showrunner for eight years of The Lord Thy God Steven Moffat (OBE). Of course, this blogger thought that Boom was great. You knew that, right?
A pointed anti-war piece, low on movement (literally and metaphorically) but high on emotion, mystery and - ultimately - great beauty. This blogger loved every single second of it. As did the reviewer at Empire. And some bloke you've never heard of at the i (not a real newspaper), the Evening Standard and, seemingly, lots of other people with the episode gaining a rare one hundred per cent score from reviews on the Rotten Tomatoes website. That there Moffinator his very self was the subject of TV Choice's Big Interview just as it was confirmed his scripting this episode wasn't merely a one-off and he will also be also behind the word-processor on this year's Doctor Who Christmas episode, Joy To The World. Which means that, for many fans, Christmas came very early this year. And lo, there was much rejoicing in The Land from the knowledgeable multitude and a great wailing and gnashing of teeth from The Special People. So, no change there, then.
Mind you, the constant repetition of 'sharp scratch' in Boom was, this blogger is sad to report, a wee bit too close to home for Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III given the amount of blood-letting he's been through in the last eighteen months. Of course, the majority of the injections that he regularly gets shoved into his poor, thin and trembly veins, are of the three-monthly B-12 kind which don't so much 'scratch', sharply or otherwise, as knack-like-ruddy-fek. If The Ambulance had said that, this blogger would have been whimpering in sympathy with her victims.
One of the aspects this blogger loved the mostest about Boom was this. Despite all of the other, numerous, great things it had going for it, the episode's rationale could, essentially, be reduced to three lines of lyrics from a Culture Club song. To wit: 'War is stupid/And people are stupid/And love means nothing'. This blogger genuinely believes that this is a trend well-worth the production pursuing - basing the plots of Doctor Who episodes on the worldview of perfectly dreadful 1980s pop-songs. Therefore, this blogger would like to nominate, next, that Big Rusty have a go at making something from the lyrics of Tight Fit's version of 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'. You know, for a laugh.
Seven days on from the spectacle that was Boom, we had even more spectacular spectacle that was 73 Yards. Gosh, but that episode was proper scary, dear blog readers.
A thoughtful, touching, lyrical piece of drama - written by Big Rusty as a Doctor-lite episode because it was the first of the current block into production and Ncuti was only available for one day's filming as he was still busy finishing his time on Sex Education. Thus, it was left to our little Millie to carry the episode virtually on her own. And she did so, magnificently. It was, dear bloggerisationism fiends, one Hell of a performance.
The one thing that this blogger didn't quite get was what - exactly - it was that Old Ruby said which so scared the Welsh bloke in the Welsh pub, Ruby's mother, all of UNIT and Mister Nasty Welsh Prime Minister Geezer. Especially as she at least appeared to be saying whatever it was that she was saying mostly though the medium of hand gestures. Perhaps that was the answer - because, there's nothing as terrifying than mime, dear blog readers. Nothing.
But, that was a minor point, really and one that will, no doubt, keep fan-fiction writers in business for every bit as long as trying to work out which of the series' three different origin stories of Atlantis is the 'real' one has. One thing is certain, Big Rusty himself isn't talking about what she said (using hand gestures, or otherwise).
Incidentally, dear bloggerisationism fiends, did you know that 22 March was the annual International Mime Day? We would have been delighted to celebrate it here on this very blog. But, sadly, no one said anything.
'Eerie, elegiac, and ambiguous almost to a fault, [73 Yards was] a properly haunting tale that's destined to be talked about, debated and theorised upon for years to come,' said the reviewer at Empire. The Gruniad Morning Star also enjoyed it. So did the Digital Spy website, the Independent, the Evening Standard and the Total Film website. Yes, that was, indeed, a really good one.
Meanwhile, those in charge of these things seem to have placed Duncan Thicket in charge of setting the questions on the daily AI questionnaires again. This blogger is not sure exactly what 'something new' watching an episode (any episode) of Doctor Who could, possibly encourage this blogger (or anyone else for that matter) to do. 'Become a time traveller,' possibly? This blogger has been trying that for years and he still hasn't got past Stage One and figured out how to make The Stately Telly Telly Manor lavatory dimensionally transcendent. He's working on the problem, though.
Moving on to episode five which was, of course, Dot And Bubble, beloved by TV Fanatic, the Standard, the Gruniad Morning Star, the Pajiab website, the Pop Culture Maniacs website, the That Hashtag Show website and pretty much everyone else who expressed a preference, publicly. Including, obviously, this blogger. Name this blogger one other TV show, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, that can go from Barbieworld to Invasion Of The Body-Eating Slugs in but one scene? You can't, can you?
Mind you, this blogger does think that Big Rusty missed one trick. After a story about self-involved, spoiled, snobbish (and, as we'll see later, potentially racist) horrible young people obsessed with social media and surface aesthetics, it might've been nice for Ruby to tell The Doctor, 'well, it had to happen sooner or later. You finally found a bunch of people that don't deserve to be saved.' We can add that bit in ourselves, this blogger reckons.
That aspect of the story intrigued at least one of this viewers Facebook fiends, who noted: 'I know I'm very dim, but why is The Doctor so convinced they're all going to die? They've escaped from The Gastropods and they're off to a bright new future of independence. In any other episode that would be a win.' To which this blogger replied: 'Because of what had preceded that scene. Because of the desperately shallow and utterly hopeless nature of the survivors (how are they going to survive without home comforts, nice fashions, parental money and an Internet connection?) Because of the fact that they, he and/or we have no idea what's out there in the wider world. It's not often that someone gets an offer of a fresh start on a new planet from The Doctor and turns it down to go and live in a forest instead - and, particularly, for the given reasons; that it's ... what, beneath them to do so? No, they're going to die, horribly, either from starvation or getting eaten by something with big teeth, very soon. And The Doctor knows that - hence his tears of frustration and anger. As this blogger said, it really needed Ruby to tell him "leave it, Doctor, they're not worth it" as they headed to the TARDIS.'
Why all of their parents placed these waste-of-space children in Finetime in the first place is also an interesting question. It did have a sense of that bit of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, where three ships left Golgafrincham before its impending (alleged) destruction, society's elite in The A-Ark, all of the essential workers in The C-Ark and, in the B-Ark, all of the useless people doing 'that's not a real job'-type jobs (telephone sanitisers, account executives, hairdressers, TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, public relations executives and management consultants) all the other lot thought we useless idiots, didn't it? 'Lets put all of our over-entitled, narcissistic, self-absorbed children on a separate planet so we don't have to deal with them on anything other than a very occasional online basis.'
The blogger must confess it was only on second viewing that he fully grasped the - subtle, but nevertheless quite clear - allusions to the racism in the planet's society. Russell did, by all accounts, fully intend the episode to be a pointed comment on intolerance, noting that all of Finetime's residents were extremely white. Many viewers (including this one) initially interpreted this as classism and thought that Lindy Pepper-Bean and her ghastly fiends were addressing their disdain at the prospect of accepting The Doctor's so-called 'voodoo' at the climax, to both The Doctor and Ruby, who were both not part of their rich, privileged society. A subsequent rewatch clearly showed how The Doctor's presence in their non-stick, ordered and depressingly clean world makes pretty much all of them uncomfortable. A dissenting view was given by some ignorant, Middle Class hippy Communist tool of no importance at inews. But then, nobody gives a shit what they think. About anything.
Following that, we had Rogue. Which this blogger, as usual, thought was great. As did Vulture, the Gruniad, Collider and The Mary Sue website, amongst others. This blogger thought it was Mad! As! Toast! Loads of fun and extremely gay (on every level).
Of course, there's always one face-ache malcontent prick who finds in necessary to ignore polite requests for 'positive comments only' on this blogger's Facebook page (using both 'please' and 'thank you') and believes this request applies to everyone else except them. Because, clearly, the whole world desperately needs to hear how this particular bag of noxious scum is 'bored of shoehorning sexuality into every sodding episode.' Despite the provocation of this crass example of sick, abject, quite possibly criminal homophobia, this blogger managed to resist the overwhelming urge to ask this individual if he wouldn't mind, awfully, effing off and dying from cancer of the arsehole at his earliest opportunity. Instead, biting his lip until it bled, Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III merely replied: 'In that case, you have no place contributing either to this thread or, indeed, to the page. Goodbye' and stuck the waste-of-space into this blogger's 'block' file along with all the other wretched, sick turds that infect the Interweb with their numbskull glakery. Good riddance, dear blog fiends, to bad rubbish.
Perhaps this blogger should have asked, before he left, whether this clown also considered the casting of The Doctor with an actor of colour was, similarly, a gross offence to his clearly delicate sensibilities. Just, you know, so the bloke could complete his Bigotry Bingo Card in full and tick all of the necessary boxes. A prime candidate for Mister Nigel Fandango and his nasty band of sick bigots to recruit to The Cause, clearly.
This blogger is usually fine with very au courant pop-culture references being used in Doctor Who although, just occasionally, they can horribly date an episode. Even if they're good ones; the appearances of The Be-Atles (a popular beat-combo of the 1960s, you might've heard of them) in episode one of The Chase in 1965 being a prime example. So, this blogger was, slightly, dreading the Bridgeton reference in Rogue as he assumed it was just going to be Ruby's stray one-liner, seen in the trailer. Oh dear, this blogger thought, 'in five years time that is going to be so 2024!' Happily, that aspect was actually central to the episode and this blogger believed it worked brilliantly. Should he have had more faith in the production? Of bloody course he should.
Plus, seemingly, Scream Of The Shalka is now, officially, canon. Which is jolly nice to know.
All of which brought us careering to the most recent episode, The Legend Of Ruby Sunday. Which was great. And you don't merely have to take this blogger's word for it, dearest blog fiends. Ask Collier and That Hashtag Show and Pop Culture Maniacs and the Gruniad.
The first twenty minutes of that episode might, just, be this blogger's second favourite part of the entire series thus far. Bested only by the second twenty five minutes! Anita Dobson got all the best lines ('She died of an ulcer. That was when I wasn't looking!'); Mel got to be an action-hero superspy (putting right all of the things the series' then-writers didn't do with her character back in 1986-87); it was lovely to see UNIT being proactive rather than reactive for once and Ncuti absolutely knocked it out of the pack in that touching solo sequence with Kate and, later, in his Goddamn righteous anger at his own failings in the scene with Mel on the way to meet Sue Tech. Plus, of course, there was a complete surprise ending. A surprise ending to end all surprise endings, ending it all. At the end. 'Wrong anagram!'
Sutekh seems to have changed quite a bit since last we saw him in 1975 (he's got a lot more teeth, for one). He appears much angrier than he was in Pyramids Of Mars, even when Sarah Jane blew up his missile and he took it out on The Doctor. Mind you, he was pretty cross that time, what with the cruel and unusual punishment of Horus forcing him to sit on a disembodied hand for six millennia. That's enough to make anyone at least a bit vexed.
So, we ended with one right muddyfunker of a 'get out of that' cliff-hanger. A Doctor Who speciality since 1963, dear blog readers.
Use your televisual devices wisely on Saturday (or Friday if it you're on the other side of the world) to find out what happens!
In late November 1963, on the day after the assassination of President Kennedy, the actor William Russell, who recently died at the age of ninety nine, was appearing in the first episode of a new BBC television series, Doctor Who. The title of series, devised by the BBC's Head of Drama Sydney Newman and developed by others within the corporation was, at heart, a - still unanswered - question posed by Russell's character, school Chemistry teacher Ian Chesterton. Thus was launched one of the most popular and long-running TV formats of all time, although the audience figures for that first night were lower than hoped-for due to the schedule upheaval caused by breaking news from the US. Nevertheless, it quickly caught on, with Russell and William Hartnell as The Doctor establishing themselves alongside Jacqueline Hill as the Chesterton's colleague (and occasional romantic interest) Barbara Wright and Carole Ann Ford as Susan, the Doctor's unearthly granddaughter. Russell stayed with the drama through its first two series (seventy eight episodes) until 1965 and then returned, in 2022, in a brief-but-memorable cameo appearance. In doing so, he established a world record for the longest gap in appearances by an actor playing the same role in a TV series (fifty seven years, four months and three days from 26 June 1965 to 23 October 2022). In 2013, he also made an appearance in Mark Gatiss' Doctor Who creation biopic An Adventure In Space & Time and, he became a regular and much-loved guest at numerous Doctor Who conventions and events. Last Saturday's episode of the BBC's popular, long-running family SF drama, The Legend Of Ruby Sunday, included an on-screen dedication to 'the loving memory of William Russell' during its end credits.
Before Doctor Who, Russell had achieved prominence in the title role of the ITV series The Adventures Of Sir Lancelot (1956 to 1957) - he was strongly built with an air of dashing bravado about him; he had been an RAF officer in the later stages of World War II - and as the lead in a 1957 BBC television adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby, transmitted live across eighteen weekly episodes. When Sir Lancelot went to the US, the first British TV import to be shot, in part, in colour for the American market, Russell rode down Fifth Avenue on a horse in full knightly regalia. By this stage he was already established in movies, playing a servant to Trevor Howard in Gift Horse (1952) and in a clutch of war and action movies including They Who Dare (1954) opposite Dirk Bogarde where Russell he met his first wife, the French model and actor Balbina Gutierrez on a boat sailing to Cyprus to a location shoot in Malta. He also featured in Ronald Neame's The Man Who Never Was (1956), in which he played Gloria Grahame's fiancé. Until that point in his career, he was known by his birth-name, Russell Enoch. But Norman Wisdom, with whom he appeared in the knockabout farce One Good Turn (1955) reportedly objected to his surname because he felt that it would publicise a vaudevillian rival, also called Enoch. So, to keep Wisdom happy, he became William Russell although, in the 1980s for happy and productive periods with the Actors Touring Company and the RSC, he reverted to his original name. William Russell Enoch was born in Sunderland, the only child of Alfred Enoch, a salesman and small business entrepreneur and his wife, Eva. They moved to Solihull, and then Wolverhampton, where the young Russell attended the grammar school before moving on to Fettes college in Edinburgh and Trinity College, Oxford, where his economics tutor was the future Labour parliamentarian and cabinet minister, Anthony Crosland.
But Russell, he claimed, didn't get the economics part of the philosophy, politics and economics course and switched, much to Crosland's relief, to English. In those years, 1943 to 1946, he worked out his National Service and appeared in revues and plays with such talented contemporaries as Kenneth Tynan, Tony Richardson and Sandy Wilson. On graduating, he featured in weekly rep in Tunbridge Wells, and at the Oxford Playhouse and appeared in the Alec Guinness Hamlet (1951) at The New Theatre. He had larger roles in seasons at The Bristol Old Vic and The Oxford Playhouse in the early 1960s, while on television he was in JB Priestley's An Inspector Calls with John Gregson and was cast as St John Rivers in Jane Eyre. He played Shylock and Ford (in The Merry Wives of Windsor) in 1968 at The Open Air, Regent's Park, before joining the RSC in 1970 as the Provost in Measure For Measure (with Ian Richardson and Ben Kingsley), Lord Rivers in Norman Rodway's Richard III and Salisbury in a touring King John, with the title role played by Patrick Stewart. His billing slipped in movies, but he played parts in good films like The Great Escape (1963), Norman Warren's Terror (1977), Superman (1978), as one of the Krypton Elders; as a passer-by drawn into the violence in the Spanish-American slasher film Deadly Manor (1990) and in Bertrand Tavernier's Death Watch (1980), a futuristic fable about celebrity, reality TV and corruption, starring Romy Schneider and Harvey Keitel.
His CV also included appearances in the likes of St Ives, Hour Of Mystery, Sword Of Freedom, ITV Play Of The Week, Armchair Theatre, Tales From Dickens, Triton, The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre, Moonstrike, Suspense, Breaking Point, Doctor Finlay's Casebook, Harriet's Back in Town (in ninety episodes as the titular character's rather dodgy husband, Tom), Justice, The Hanged Man, The Main Chance, Crown Court, Van Der Valk, Disraeli, Strangers, Testament Of Youth, Shoestring, Spearhead, Mackenzie, Play For Today, The Professionals, a brief-but-unforgettable appearance in The Black Adder ('No! Spare me the little forks!'), Robin Of Sherwood, Coronation Street (a forty six episode run in 1992 as Ted Sullivan), Casualty, Heartbeat and Agatha Christie's Poirot. With John Retallack's Actors Touring Company in the 1980s, he was a lurching, apoplectic Sir John Brute in John Vanbrugh's The Provok'd Wife, possessing, according to Jonathan Keates in the Gruniad Morning Star, 'a weirdly philosophical elegance'; a civilised Alonso, expertly discharging some of the best speeches in The Tempest and a quick-change virtuosic king, peasant, soldier and tsar in Alfred Jarry's 1896 surrealist satire Ubu Roi. Back at the RSC in 1989, he was the courtly official Egeus in a memorable production of A Midsummer Night's Dream by John Caird and both The Ghost and First Player in Mark Rylance's Hamlet. In 1994 he took over (from Peter Cellier) as Pinchard in Peter Hall's production of Le Dindon. He rejoined Rylance in a season in 1997 at the new Shakespeare's Globe. He was King Charles VI of France in Henry V and the Tutor in Thomas Middleton's Jacobean comedy, A Chaste Maid In Cheapside. Many years later, in 2021, his son Alfred Enoch, would play on the same stage as Romeo.
Russell is survived by his second wife, Etheline, a doctor, whom he married in 1984 and their son, Alfred (with whom Russell acted in one of his final roles, the 2020 movie Executive Order), by his children, Vanessa, Laetitia and Robert from his marriage to Balbina, which ended in divorce and four grandchildren, James, Elise, Amy and Ayo.
This blogger's favourite part of David Brunt's (quite superb) The Doctor Who Production Guide: The Hartnell Years (Telos Publishing, available from all good online sellers of reading materials ... and some bad ones) occurred on page two hundred and four (dealing with Sunday, 29 March 1964 and Audience Research focusing on 'young viewers' reactions to various BBC programmes). In relation to Doctor Who, there were, broadly, very positive reactions. However, one Mrs AM Murphy (of York) stated that 'quite a number' of parents whom she, personally, knew had expressed their dislike for Doctor Who; indeed two 'professional class' fathers thought it was a 'bad and pernicious programme' for the BBC to be putting out. Of course, the fact that Mrs AM Murphy (of York) and the two 'professional class' fathers in question are now, in 2024, extremely dead is the upside to all of this malarkey. Where is your God now, Mrs AM Murphy (of York)? Although, of course, all of their great grandchildren all appear to have carried on the noble family tradition and now have their own YouTube channels and use the word 'woke' a great deal when describing the casting of a non-white h*mosexu*list in the role of that there nice Mister Hartnell.
Nevertheless, this does bring up the glaringly obvious question of which 'professional class' these two fathers belonged to. Were they, perhaps, members of the, ahem, oldest profession? In which case, shouldn't they we more concerned about where they left their knickers than television programmes? Were they, possibly, 'professional' association socherballers? Who should, really, have been more focused with the forthcoming abolition of the maximum wage thanks to the efforts of That There Jimmy Hill and his magnificent chin. Were they 'professionals' in line with the sort of people whom Mister Graham Lister claimed to know. Well - 'doctor and dentists and the like'? In which case, 'you're a fool, Reeves, a complete idiot.' Or, perhaps, were they Mssrs Bodie and Doyle of CI5? Who should have been practicing rolling over the bonnets of their Ford Capri 3.0 in homoerotic slow-motion and bellowing 'cover me!' These questions need to be answered in volume two, David. Sorry, but it's The Law.
Now, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, it's been a while but we arrive at that special (if, these days, occasional) part of From The North dedicated to this blogger's horribly on-going medical malarkey. Or, strictly speaking, malarkeys as there continue to be several of them. For those dear bloggerisationism fiends who haven't been following this epic adventure, over two years in the making, it goes like this: Keith Telly Topping spent some weeks around Christmas 2021 and into the New Year of 2022 feeling pure rotten, so he did; experienced an alarming five day stay in hospital; was discharged; received some B12 injections; then more of them; somewhat recovered his missing appetite; got an initial diagnosis; had a consultant's meeting; continued to suffer from fatigue and insomnia; endured a (second) endoscopy; had another consultation; got (unrelated) toothache; had an extraction; which then took ages to heal; had another consultation; spent a week where nothing remotely health-related occurred; received further B-12 injections; had an echocardiogram; was subject to more blood extractions; made another hospital visit; saw the unwelcome insomnia and torpor continue; received yet more blood tests; had a rearranged appointment; suffered his worst period yet with fatigue. Until the following week. And then, the week after that. Oh, the fatigue, dear blog reader. The depressing, ceaseless fatigue. He then had a go on the Blood-Letting Machine; got another sick note; had an assessment; was given his fourth COVID jab; got some surprising-but-welcome news about his assessment; had the results of his annual diabetes check-up; had another really bad week with the fatigue; followed by one with the sciatica; then one with the chronic insomnia; and, one with a plethora of general cold-related grottiness. Which continued over the 2022 Christmas period and into 2023. There was that whole 'slipping in The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House bath and putting his knee through the side' thing; a period of painful night-time leg and foot cramps; getting some new spectacles; returning to the East End pool; only to discover that he remained as weak of a kitten in the water. Or, indeed, out of it; felt genuinely wretched; experienced a nasty bout of gastroenteritis; had a visit from an occupational therapist; did the 'accidentally going out of the gaff in his slippers' malarkey; saw the return of the dreaded insomnia and the dreaded return of the fatigue. Had the latest tri-monthly prickage; plus, yet more sleep disturbances; a further bout of day-time retinology; a bout of extreme exhaustion; picked up a cold virus in the week that he got his latest Covid and influenza inoculations; got through the entire Department Of Baths malarkey (and then, its sequel) whilst suffering from significant, on-going, back spasms. Received the welcome news that his latest test for cancer of the colon had come back negative. Got scheduled for yet more blood tests. And, had another couple of 'crack-of-dawn' appointments.
The first part of this blogger's six-monthly diabetes/anaemia/hypertension check-up thingy occurred in May just after the last From The North update. Involving as usual yet more prodding, poking and blood-letting (well of course, it did - there was a 'Y' in the day, after all). The full results would, this blogger was assured, be available in roughly two weeks but, the one immediate talking point was that yer actual Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III's yo-yoing weight issues had, for once, pleasingly yo-yo'd in the right direction. Downwards. Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III his very self weighed in at 106.8kg (that's 16st 9lbs for those who went to school before this blogger). Over a twelve kilo drop in the seven months since this blogger last had a check-up. He knew it had been coming down, of course, but that much of a loss was entirely unexpected. The odd thing is, no one - including this blogger - can quite work out why since (the occasional half-hour in the swimming pool once every couple of weeks when he can manage it, aside) this blogger's lifestyle hasn't, significantly, changed since the last bi-annual review. And Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III is still dog-tired all the bloody time. Nevertheless, Nurse Andrea's advice was straightforward. 'Whatever it is you're doing, keep doing it!' This blogger's blood pressure was a little on the high side (albeit nowhere near as high as it has been last time when his medication had been changed as a result) and, broadly, 'within acceptable limits.' The blood, spit and wee-wee samples provided would, subsequently, be analysed under a microscope.
A couple of days after that initial assessment, The Stately Telly Topping Manor got a rather alarming telephone call from the receptionist at the Medical Centre telling Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III that they would need to book him in for yet another blood test as his kidney functions 'weren't what they ought to be.' Obviously, Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III was more than a little concerned by this information - he is not a medical professional or anything even remotely like it, but he does know that having a reasonably functioning pair of kidneys (and not as ingredients in a steak pie) is generally speaking a good idea. So, this blogger asked if he should be concerned about this and the receptionist gave him a right load of flannel about how she didn't know, that's not her job, she's just the poor sucker that has to make the phone calls (oh, woe is her, frankly) et cetera. 'Ask the nurse when you're in for the blood test' she advised. 'In a fortnight?" this blogger queried (in something a high-pitched, girly voice, let it be noted). 'Yes. In a fortnight,' she replied. Now, given that the blood test had been arranged for two weeks hence and not, you know, the very next day, this blogger assumed it wasn't that life-threatening. Nevertheless, the first thing this blogger did when he got eventually to see the delightful Nurse Ami during the second part of his bi-annual check-up, was to ask that very question. She looked a bit surprised and asked exactly what the receptionist had said. This blogger told her, exactly. She looked more than a touch cross and said 'she missed out one key word, can you see what it is?' This blogger looked at her computer screen at the part she was pointing to and it said 'kidney functions slightly out, arrange another set of bloods.' 'Emphasis on the word slightly' she added. Anyway, Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III had more blood taken (and yes, again, there was a lengthy hunt for a functioning vein, meaning that as usual Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III's right arm looked like a pin cushion after she'd finished) but she said that this blogger should worry about it roughly as much as he worries about being hit by an asteroid on an average day. Not a lot. That apart, yet again it was a case of ... 'whatever it is that you're doing, keep doing it.' This blogger already knew his weight was way down (and, it has gone down a bit further in the preceding fortnight). This blogger's blood pressure, which had been fluctuating up-and-down recently, was 'absolutely fine' this time around. Blood sugar levels were also good - usually, they're looking for a figure somewhere around fifty; this blogger has normally had a level in the forties or thereabouts in the past but last time it was an alarming sixty nine (which is only just within acceptable 'mild concern' levels and almost into the 'no, that's way too high' column); this time, however, it was back down to fifty one. Potassium levels were slightly higher than usual (this blogger assured her that he hasn't been eating bananas as they make him vomit copious amongst of phlegm). Everything else they tested was pretty much spot on (apart from the insomnia, the fatigue and the general lack of get-up-and-go, which appears to have got-up-and-gone). 'See you in six months and try not to do anything you haven't been doing, recently,' Nurse Ami advised. Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III will take that as a positive.
A couple of days after that, Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III received yet another phone call from the Medical Centre (at least, this time, it was with a receptionist who had actually read the bloody notes). Most of the bloods taken for testing earlier in the week were fine, the only slight (and, it was slight) downside is that this blogger's potassium levels remained a bit higher than they would like. So, they have arranged a phone-call for next Friday with one of the practice doctors just to have a general chat about why they think this is happening (it may well be related to one of the numerous medications which blogger is taking). Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III confessed that all he, personally, knew about potassium is that a) its chemical symbol is K (cosmic), b) bananas are full of it and c) it's radioactive. Therefore, if Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III has got too much of it, shouldn't that mean he turns into a superhero - POTASSIUM MAN - with a massive K on his spandex-covered chest?
And, perhaps, a banana on the front cover of his own, monthly DC comic-book adaptation?
Moving on to other matters. This blogger is happy to announce the arrival of the new Stately Telly Topping Manor keyboard (Kelvin) and mouse (Mandy) combination and, also, Harriet the Stately Telly Topping Manor wireless-headphones. So that yer actual Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III can play his extremely loud bongo-bongo music by popular beat combos late into the night when he's feeling particularly insomniac (which remains not an infrequent occurrence these days) without disturbing the chap that lives downstairs. Because Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III is but nothing if not a caring and/or sharing neighbour.
Next, some really terribly important news from the South coast.
This blogger thinks that, of all the sponsored ads that some algorithm somewhere believes he might give the slightest flying fek about, this one might be the first to stir an actual bit of interest in yer actual Nebuchadnezzar Bananastein Wildebeest III. In a purely hypothetical way, obviously ...
There are a few nominations for the latest From The North Headline Of The Month award, starting with this absolute corker from the BBC News website.
Or, there's the good old, reliable, Sunday Sport showing it has. as usual, got its finger right on the pulse the nation when it comes to important news. (PS: In answer to the headline, no they won't if they play the way they did in the second-half against Serbia, if Southgate carries on playing Foden on the right-wing instead of Anthony Gordon or if Bellingham gets himself injured or suspended.)
Mind you, according to the Evesham Observer, that flaming bad-shit-mad Aspargus Woman is at it again. 'On the UK General Erection she said the asparagus was not predicting great things for Rishi Sunak or Sir Keir Starmer. "When I cast the Rishi Sunak asparagus, it fell on the floor and I thought 'he’s toast'." On Starmer she added: "Back in January I forecast he would not be the Labour leader at the time of the General rection and I still think that will be the case. It is going to be a very interesting summer."' Well, let us all wait for a couple of weeks and then we can see if the Asparagus lied, or not.
We also have an excellent effort from the Glossop Chronicle.
And, this extraordinary piece in Australia's Northern Terrioty News.
Blimey, no wonder Granny's been looking so happy of late.
There's plenty of Euro 2024-related news around. Perhaps, given what happened in their opening game against Germany, this chap who's been whinging to Edinburgh Live about his inability to watch the tournament, should consider himself jolly lucky. All your fellows Jocks who travelled to München for the game didn't have that luxury, pal.
The St Albans Times are, seemingly, far more focused on the forthcoming General Erection.
The Metro (so, not a real newspaper), meanwhile, have what is quite clearly the most important story of the decade so far. No you really haven't, mate, he's in Heaven. Derek Acorah 'proved' it, remember.
And, strange things are apparently occurring in Pegswood, according to the Northern Echo. Anyone else reckon 'Oliver & His Amazingly Large Frozen-Chip' is a Viz comic-strip just waiting to happen? But then, young Oliver is, seemingly, one of Th' Toon Army like this blogger so, good on ya, kidda. All of us here at From The North hope you and your unfeasibly-sizeable potato-based companion have a load of terrific and exciting adventures together. With lashings of pop.
Over in Germany, it appears that the local media is decidedly unimpressed with all the sniggering that's been occurring over the location of Scotland's Euro 2024 training camp. It could be far worse, of course. The tournament could have been held in Switzerland and they could be playing in Bern at Young Boys' stadium. Now that would be worthy of more than a snigger or two.
As anyone who has ever worked - even briefly - in journalism will be happy to tell you, nothing sells newspapers more than a good 'stink' of a story. Clearly, the Liverpool Echo understand this.
As, seemingly, do Metro (though, whether they actually count as a 'real' newspaper is a matter still open to legitimate debate).
And finally, dear blog reader, 'I wouldn't put that bin there, mate, there's a sink-hole under it.'
